With new commanders and a focus on counterinsurgency, President Obama is making Afghanistan “his” war. With al Qaeda now next door in Pakistan, what are the goals? Will Democrats agree they’re sustainable and worth the cost in troops and money? Also, Nancy Pelosi and torture, and the inside story of Tiananmen Square.

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With new commanders and a focus on counterinsurgency, President Obama is making Afghanistan “his” war. With al Qaeda now next door in Pakistan, what are the goals? Will Democrats agree they’re sustainable and worth the cost in troops and money? Also, what did Nancy Pelosi know about “enhanced interrogation techniques?” On Reporter's Notebook, the Communist Party chief ousted for trying to avoid blood in Tiananmen Square left a memoir. We hear what went on behind the scenes.

Banner image: Fighters with Afghanistan's Taliban militia stand on a hillside at Maydan Shahr in Wardak province, west of Kabul. Afghanistan's long years of unrest have produced a new generation of Islamic militants, armed with new ideologies, funds and warfare from the Al-Qaeda terror network. Photo, taken September 26, 2008: STR/AFP/Getty Images

The President is sending is more soldiers and changing commanders in Afghanistan. General David McKiernan has now been replaced by Lt.
General Stanley McChrystal, “a rising superstar” who’ll be leading “an all-star
team.” Some conservatives praise him for starting to nation-build. But powerful
Democrats want to know if he’s making an open-ended commitment that can’t be
sustained, like previous Presidents in Vietnam. Obama says the real issue
is the threat from al Qaeda, but even General David Petraeus says al Qaeda’s
now totally in Pakistan.
Is the war still legal? Will more violence be counterproductive, especially
with increased civilian casualties?

Democrats and Republicans continue to battle over who knew what and when about so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques." Nancy Pelosi today accused the Bush Administration of lying to Congress about when the CIA began to use waterboarding. The House Speaker herself has been attacked by Republicans for initially saying she had never been told that waterboarding was used, then later saying that a staff member had told her about a briefing she did not attend. Glenn Thrush is senior Congressional reporter for Politico.

It's been almost 20 years since the Chinese government's bloody crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square. Now an extraordinary memoir from the Communist Party chief of the day, reveals what was going on behind the scenes. In the words of an editor, the goal was not just "to suppress a rebellion but to settle a power struggle between conservative and liberal factions." Adi Ignatius, editor of the Harvard Business Review, was a correspondent in Beijing during the Tiananmen protest.